Outside the lines

Nick Granato writes really good songs. And he's a great singer. And his most recent release is actually called Outside the Lines. And actually, beyond giving a shout-out to Nick, he's only peripherally involved in this post. I'm thinking about Outside the Lines because I'm reading Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, as if you've been following this blog, you know. And in the chapter called Writing as a Practice, she says, 

In my notebooks I don't bother with the side margin or the one at the top: I fill the whole page. I am writing for myself first and I don't have to stay within my limits, not even margins.

So in my daily journal entries, I've been doing that: writing outside the margins, daring to go outside the lines, as Nick so poetically and musically put it in his song Color Outside the Lines (on the above-mentioned and linked CD). But here's the thing: it's so automatic for me to write within the margins of the notebook that I frequently forget and find myself writing within the little red lines on the side of the page.

I am so indoctrinated into staying "inside the lines" that I have to consciously make the decision to not do it. And no, I don't suppose the content of what I write in that journal is necessarily connected to where on the page it is written. But the symbolism strikes me. By taking a merely physical step outside conformity, is it perhaps possible to make a mental, emotional or spiritual step toward non-conformity as well? I'll let you know.

Happy Tuesday.